"I was always so terrified that people weren't going to accept me," Panettiere told Yahoo! Style, which features her in a photo spread. "I finally just went, 'I'm tired of living afraid. I'm tired of living in fear of what people are going to think, so you know, I'm just going to put it all out there on the table and I'm not going to worry about the judgment.'"

"The more open I was, the more acceptance I got from people," she added. "I got so much support and so much love. I was floored. I feel much more exposed, yes, but in a great way."

"It was strange having to throw myself back into that frame of mind," Panettiere told Yahoo! Style. "The way I do things is to pull from my own personal experience and sometimes even turn myself into what I'm portraying so that I can pull from my life and step into that person's shoes by being able to relate."